Friday, September 08, 2006

The new clock rules suck

In case you have been living in a cave the past month, the NCAA has passed a new rule to reduce the length of the game. Now, apparently big time network types were afraid the game was getting too long and they weren’t able to cram enough games in one day with game 1 overrunning game 2, etc. So they asked the NCAA to shorten the games so that they can still fit all the games with all their commercials into one day. Now if you, I, and good college football fans across this nation comprised the NCAA Football Rules Committee and the big execs asked us to shorten the games we would say something like “Sure, starting this year we will limit the number of, and length of commercial timeouts in each game, jackoff” and then hit the hidden button underneath our desk to drop the 10 ton Acme Anvil on their heads a la Looney Tunes. But no, the rules committee caved to corporate America, like they always do, and came up with a hair brain scheme (like something out of Looney Tunes) to actually shorten the number of plays in a game. Rule 3-2-5-e was instituted which started the clock the moment the ball is kicked on a kickoff, and when the ball was set following a change of possession.

After week one, there has been a reduction in the order of 10% of plays gone with the wind. Some may say, well that doesn’t seem like much, but think of it this way: we all LOVE the college football product, but we tolerate the packaging to get to what we love. Some people love chocolate. Let’s say you’re a chocolate lover and Hershey’s said they were going to reduce their candy bars by 10%, but still charge you the same price. Moreover, they were going to keep the same wrapper, but use the extra space to place ads for more Hershey products, would you be happy? No, you would start buying a competitors bar. Unfortunately, we football fans can’t do that. We can, however, voice our displeasure. There is a grassroots campaign started by some Big 12 football fans to petition the rules committee to change the clock rule back for next season. wehatethenewclockrules.com is the place where you can go and electronically sign to be part. I implore all Penn State fans, and fans of this blog to go on over and sign if you haven’t already done so, it only takes a minute (you need a valid e-mail address to do so.)